Christian Living

Wrought in God

by Thomas Kirkpatrick
09/27/21
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“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5-7)

Stealing a current phrase of present culture, I have become “woke” in my definition of the term “light” in the Scripture. In the past, I have felt the words light and truth were similar in meaning. In this phrase, scripture “God is Light” could also be understood that God is truth. Nowhere in the Bible does it say God is truth. Isaiah and Colossians say “God of truth,” and the gospels of Matthew and Mark say “God in truth.” Jesus stood before Pilate and said, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.” (John 18:27) I have taken on a new view of light and truth.

In the Hebrew culture, the light was life, goodness, and godliness, where darkness was unrighteousness, and people of the darkness were ignorant of the truth and facing spiritual death. The term light is God’s function of expressing Himself. God is the light that illuminates and brings His reality to the spirits of humanity. Without God’s light, humanity would be living in darkness and have no reality of who God is. People can physically perceive reality through their senses; spiritually would not be able to see the reality of God without the illumination of God’s Spirit. God shines His light upon us, and we see the reality of His truth.

When we read God’s Word, His spiritual light reveals the truth of His words. All Scripture is inspirited by God and written by holy men. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) The Holy Spirit interprets the meaning of His truth to us and brings it into our reality. God is light, and His light illuminates our spirit with His truth.

When a sinner hears the gospel of God’s Word and believes in the Lord Jesus, his spirit has been illuminated by God’s light. The Lord comes in, and the convert senses a new fellowship with God’s Spirit and his. The more he surrenders to the Spirit of God, the more God’s light drives the darkness out, and the truth sustains and strengthens him. The old self fades, and the new self created by God’s truth brings joy and freedom from his yesterday life. The truth of unmerited mercy and grace exemplifies the love the Lord has for humanity, a love that never ceases, a joy that never fades, and peace through the storms of this life.

God’s light is power. His light is the power to change a human heart. The heart is deceitful, twisting every truth we have come to believe in this world. Too often, if not always, the twisted truth of this world’s wisdom will fail and fade into yesterday’s news leaving the heart to search for a new reality. God’s light destroys the darkness of the lies the world offers, and His truth leads to a righteous life free from the fear of death’s destiny. God’s reality, His truth, changes the course from an ending path to an eternal path of lasting life. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)

The Lord’s Spirit will compel us to abandon the passing culture of this world and conform to the life of a child destined for the Kingdom to come. No longer living as the world but a citizen of eternal peace, love, and joy. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

The course is not a new path but a path set by the Ancient of Days long before the foundations of creation were laid. Planned from the beginning to the end and bigger than the imagination of any finite man. Taking on this path is a commitment to our belief in the truth of God’s Word. Living is in His Word, having the faith to see His truth unfold before our eyes, and being His good news to our neighbor. Exercising obedience to His command gives us an understanding of His truth and the ability to stay the course and gain the prize of His glory.  “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Jesus came in the likeness of man to bring the reality of His Kingdom to the world. “He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Ephesians 2:6-8) Jesus living through us brings the reality of His Kingdom to the truth that all may see. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:34)

The God of light revealed His truth to us by the illumination of His truth in our spirits. We had become under the conviction we were orphans in His creation. We were living in a passing world of fatherless souls racing to the pit of destruction. We were born into this life with the burden of a sinful nature desiring disobedience to the Word of God, seeking pleasure that will pass in time, and losing the inheritance of God’s richness of glory. He who called us to come and follow Him gave us His Spirit to enable us to overcome, shaped us into God’s faithful children, will stand with us in the judgment. On that day, Jesus will present us to His Father, perfect and holy. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:21)

His Word is truth, as we have seen it by His light. He is faithful to the death, as He redeemed us with His blood on the cross. He is true as none other has the power to keep His Word. As we walk with the Lord, He is living through us, and we are secure in His will. There is none to fear, but God alone, there is none to kneel before but God alone, and there is but one everlasting joy, and that is to be in our Heavenly Father’s will. “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:9-12)

Thomas N Kirkpatrick

First Baptist Church of Durant, August 19, 2020